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A medical supplies direct marketer is trying a radical change in its creative to increase response rates and sales.

Moore Medical was hoping for a more than 10% conversion rate last month to an $80,000 direct mail campaign for flu vaccines. The effort, begun in late September, experimented with using bright yellow day-glo envelopes to get prospects' attention, said Ron Flormann, vice president of business development.

The $135 million-a-year company is in the mail every month, sending more than 4 million pieces annually to promote one product or other. Previously, Moore had relied on the typical plain white envelopes for all its direct mail campaigns. If this test is successful, the flashy outers may be rolled out for other mailings.

“We'll see what results it brings in,” said Flormann. “We'll abandon it if it doesn't get good results as we would with any other direct mail test.”

The 30,000-piece mailing was sent to doctors' offices, schools, public health clinics, prisons and other institutions, promoting the availability of the flu vaccine and the fact that flu season was beginning right away, said Flormann.

The pieces went to a combination of compiled lists gathered from local medical societies across the country and to institutions and clinics taken from other compiled files, as well as to portions of the New Britain, CT company's house file.

The average sales from these campaigns typically range from as little as $500 for individual doctors to more than $580,000 for large institutional customers, said Flormann.

Before this mailing, Moore — which also markets through fax, e-mail and the Web (www.mooremedical.com) — sent out a 70,000-message permission-based e-mail and fax campaign for the flu vaccine to a portion of its in-house database.

While Flormann didn't reveal conversion rates, he did say that “We used up our initial supply of 250,000 doses of flu vaccines and made an emergency reorder.”

Moore Medical serves the podiatry, primary care physician, emergency medical service and occupational health markets, as well as such public sector areas as schools, prisons, and federal, state and local healthcare clinics.